Floating of lamps during the Kartik Bath. FOLKLORE OF WELLS BEING A STUDY OF WATER-WORSHIP IN EAST AND WEST BY R. P. MASANI, M.A. BOMBAY: D. B. TARAPOREVALA SONS & Co. 1918 Printed by B. Miller, Superintendent, British India Press, Bombay. Published by D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co....

For literary conceits and dreams of authorship there is no more powerful antidote than the tedium of official life. It radically cures all such morbid propensities. This little book, however, owes its inspiration to office routine. It was in connection with official business that my interest in the subject of water-worship was awakened about six years ago when in my capacity as Municipal Secretary of Bombay I received several protests against requisitions for the closing of wells. In the course

Time was when the whole earth, the fever-stricken isle of Bombay included, was free from fevers. One unlucky day, however, Daksha Prajapati and his son-in-law Shiva fell out and their discord brought with it a whole crop of fevers. The story runs that Daksha Prajapati once celebrated a great sacrifice to which he did not invite Shiva. All humanity had to suffer for this insult which greatly incensed Shiva whose breath during those moments of fury emitted eight frightful fevers. In the good old d

When owners of houses are asked to fill up their wells or to cover them, they generally apply for permission to provide a wire-gauze cover or a trap-door. In not a few of these cases the application is prompted either by a desire “to enable the spirits in the well to come out,” or by the fear “lest the spirits should bring disaster” if they were absolutely shut up. Mr. Gamanlal F. Dalal, Solicitor, once wrote on behalf of a client, regarding his well in Khetwadi Main Road:— “My client and his fa

A tenant of the same house in Ghoga Street informed Dr. Shroff that a cooly spat on the pavement surrounding the oracular well with the result that he died instantly on the spot for having defiled the holy ground. This reminds me of a story related to me about three years ago of a European girl who took suddenly ill and died within a day or two after she had kicked aside a stone kept near the pavement of a well in Loveji Castle at Parel. On this stone people used to put their offerings to the sa

Close by Nowroji Wadia’s house was another habitat of spirits. The owner of the house, a Parsi lady, was asked to cover it. In view of the sad experience of the fate of the owner of the neighbouring house she was reluctant to do anything that might offend the spirits, but the Malaria Department was insistent. She therefore first implored the presiding deities of the well to forgive her as she had no option in the matter, and then consented to cover the well provided a wire-gauze trap-door was al

We have seen that water-worship was a cult of hoary antiquity. The belief that every locality has its presiding genius gave rise to the deification of fountains and rivers just as it led to the deification of hills and trees and other phases of animism. The emphasis of animism lies in its localisation, in the local spirits which, to quote Tylor’s words, belong to mountain and rock and valley, to well and stream and lake, in brief, to those natural objects which in early ages aroused the savage m

Throughout the West the cult of water was flourishing along with the cult of trees and stones when Christianity found its way to Europe. The holy wells which were then plentiful have since changed their names, but a few have still retained their old names. Thus there is or was a spring called Woden’s well in Gloucestershire, which supplies water to the moat around Wandswell Court, also a Thor’s Well, or Thorskill, in Yorkshire. When the faith and usages of the Celtics and the Anglo-Saxons came i

With the learned author of Tom Tit Tot we also think with sympathy of the worship of the saint Khwaja Khizr, who is believed by the Syrians to have caused water to flow in the Sabbati fountain in northern Syria and who is ranked among the prophets by the Mahomedans and recognised by the Hindus as a patron saint of boatmen, his Moslem name being Hinduised into Râjâ Kidar or Kawaj or Pir Badra. He is, however, most widely known as the patron saint of the water of immortality. When the great Sikand

Many of these wells are renowned no less for their medicinal properties than for their sanctity. Their waters are believed to be under the care of sanitary guardians and are held to be extremely efficacious in curing many a distemper. The use of water for therapeutic purposes is mentioned in the Old Testament, where it is stated that Naaman, who suffered from skin disease, dipped himself seven times in the Jordan and was cured. The New Testament records a case of congenital blindness cured by wa

Water-spirits being authors of fertility in general, it is natural that they should be credited with the power of fertilizing human beings as well as animals. In many places the power of bestowing offspring is ascribed to them, and several wells in India have a reputation for conferring the blessings of parenthood. The Hindus believe that “a son secures three worlds, a grandson bliss, and a great grandson a seat even above the highest heavens. By begetting a virtuous son one saves oneself as wel

In East and West alike there are oracular wells inhabited by spirits gifted with powers of divination. The instance of the well in Ghoga Street in Bombay has already been noted. There is a kund in Baladana near Wadhawan, dedicated to Hol, the favourite mata of the Charans. In this kund , black or red gagar bedinus pieces of cotton thread are sometimes seen floating on the water. They appear only for a moment, and sink if any one endeavours to seize them. The appearance of black pieces forbodes f

So far we have met beneficent spirits of the divine sea and blessed springs and wells. Let us not forget that there are also maleficent deities and mischievous water-goblins infesting ill-omened streams and wells. In India where the lives and fortunes of cattle and people alike hang on the precarious seasonal rainfall, the water-spirits are as a rule regarded as friendly dispensers of life and fertility. Even the sea-gods are on the whole beneficent beings. The Darya-Pirs of the Luvanas (merchan

The worst of all ill-omened streams in India is the dread Vaitaranî , the river of death, which is localized in Orissa and which pours its stream of ordure and blood on the confines of the realm of Yama. [43] Ill fares the man who in that dread hour lacks the aid of a priest and the holy cow to help him to the other shore. But the Indian water furies are easily propitiated. Goats, or fish, or fowl, or even flowers and cocoanuts are enough to appease them. Thus the Tapti and the Sutlej receive go

Whence arose the fear of evil spirits? Who were those water demons? Both philology and history confirm the view that the Devas or demons of old were in many cases either the conquered aborigines of the various lands in which the ancient Aryans settled themselves, or hostile races dwelling along their frontiers. Out of this hostility of races coming in close contact with one another sprang various superstitions. In some cases the armies of the aborigines were represented as accompanied by their o

Commencing with the Teutonic centres of England, Sir Laurence Gomme shows that the middle and south-eastern counties almost fix the boundary of one form of well-worship, a form which has lost all local colour, all distinct ritual, and remains only in the dedication of the well or spring to a saint of the Christian Church, in the tradition of its name as a “holy well,” or else in the memory of some sort of reverence formerly paid to the waters, which in many cases are nameless. Proceeding from sm

This beautiful song of the well is taken from the Jewish scriptures. Budde believes that the song alludes to a custom by which when a well or spring was found, it was lightly covered over, and then opened by the Sheikhs in the presence of the clan and to the accompaniment of a song. In this way, by the fiction of having dug it, the well was regarded as the property of the clan. He thinks that a passage in Nilus (Migne, “Patrologia Graeca”), to which Goldziber has called attention, confirms this

We have seen that the Indian method of venerating a well was to crown it with flowers, to cover it with jalis or trellis work of flowers, to illumine it with ghee-lamps placed in niches specially made for the purpose and to strew the pavement with cocoanuts, betel-nuts, sugar and sweets and milk and ghee and to smear it with red lead. We have also noticed that floral decoration and garland-dressing is an act of simple reverence, being a survival of the earlier and more primitive practices and ce

The most singular feature of well-worship in Europe is the fantastic custom of offering rags at sacred wells, also pins and buttons, rusty nails and needles, and even shells and pebbles. Rag wells and pin wells abound in Great Britain and Ireland. Many references to these are found in the works of European folklorists. Sir Laurence Gomme has skilfully distributed them geographically and we may adopt his analysis. [55] In the middle and southern countries of England these practices have not survi

In India no one would think of offering to the water-spirits such impure articles as pins and needles and nails, much less “rags tored off shirts and petticoats.” It would be positive defilement of water. Sometimes, however, flags are seen hoisted near holy wells, and European travellers represent them as rag wells corresponding to those with which they are familiar in the west. There is, however, a good deal of difference between the two customs. In the first place these flags are not rags. The

The western practices and customs we have noticed show that the cult of water-worship prevailed and survived throughout the west in a primitive form, evidently in a coarser form than in the east. The most remarkable feature of this rude worship is the belief in the presence of animals or fish as the presiding spirits or tutelary deities of the wells and it affords a very curious illustration of the savagery of those days in Europe. Originally, the worship was established for one great divinity o